Supremacy
by denythesavior
Summary: For once, Commander Morrigan Shepard's enemies aren't physical. This time, she must battle the demons from within. [Will turn extremely AU, M for various reasons] "She's flame incarnate – her eyes are alight with a gaze of death, and her words ring with assurance, with authority. No one questions her behavior, no one seems to SEE."
1. Prologue

**I AM YOUR WRATH / PROLOGUE**

"Miranda. Garrus. Get up here."

He jumps up onto the platform next to Shepard, and slants a glance to her from the corner of his eye when she begins to speak. She's flame incarnate – her eyes are alight with a gaze of death, and her words ring with assurance, with authority. The people that stand with her, watching, would follow her into hell itself. He has to wonder if any of them realize that Shepard _is_ hell _herself_, that she's the lashing fire and the hand of death. He wonders: _has anyone else noticed these changes? Does anyone else question her? _His answer stands in a semi-circle before him: no.

No one questions. No one seems to _see._

Again, he tells himself that this isn't the time for him to question her. She's leading them and they're following blindly, because who is going to say no to Commander Shepard, the Butcher of Torfan, Hero of the Citadel? He would worry about blind faith, but he knows better – Shepard knows what she's doing. Shepard is going to lead them all through this suicide mission. Once, he would have been sure that they'd lose people along the way, but she seems unstoppable. _No, _he says to himself, _she __**is **__unstoppable._

He's tense as the platform lifts up and away, carrying himself and the two women to a future that he's never been more uncertain about. He avoids looking at Shepard, knowing what he'll see; that little smirk that pulls up the corners of her lips, twisting a pleasant face into something dark and _different. _His mandibles flick against his face before pulling tight against his jaw, and he clenches his teeth together as they approach their destination. His talons curl possessively over his assault rifle, a fresh heatsink in place and ready to be unloaded into any of their enemies.

He'll do what he's always done best – watch Shepard's six and _fight hard._

* * *

**Hi there guys! This little story right here is my NaNoWriMo. It's a massive difference from my other one (which I am actually going to re-write), and I'm seriously just running with this. I'm not stopping to go over and edit, I'm not thinking much about where it'll end up – it's like a speedrun through a game. Because of this (come onnnn, I gotta get to fifty thousand words in a month!), I'd really appreciate it if I didn't get any reviews/PMs about grammar, spelling, flow or the like. Speculating about what's going to happen and whatnot is totally awesome. Picking at it is not! Thanks very very much for reading, and I hope you drop me a review! ;D Oh, and expect the next chapter to be longer – this is just a prologue!**


	2. Chapter 1

**KNOW ME BY NAME / RECRUITING ARCHANGEL**

There's a group coming up the bridge. They're not freelancing mercs. They're not civilians trying to be something they're not. They're a strong, well-meshed fighting force and they're pushing their way through the waves of mercs like the others are nothing. The one at point is a flare of biotics and a shotgun, charging at the victims with absolutely no finesse. There's something almost _familiar _about those moves; that fighting style rings little bells in the back of his mind. However, he can't quite place it, and instead hits whoever it is with a concussive shot. It's a test and a signal to hurry up; he can't hold out forever by himself. He already feels like it's been forever. His body is aching, his gun heavy, but he can't let it drop. He can't let it go.

By the time the trio gets up to him, he has to hide the exhaustion. A voice sounds behind him, and his mandibles press in tight as something hard drops into his stomach, causing ice to spread through his veins. _There's a ghost in the room. _He doesn't know if he should turn and face it, or let himself collapse and die here. Perhaps he's been at this for too long. Perhaps insanity has crept into the edges of his mind when he's not looking, and he's conjured her here, stemming from his never-ending fantasies. Still yet, he has to turn, to look, and he takes a deep breath and looks down his scope in preparation. There's one more merc he picks off before swinging around to face them, schooling his expression into one of neutrality as he internally struggles against the recognition of that voice.

"Shepard." And then, because he can't hold it back even though every fiber of his being screams not to bring it up: "I thought you were dead." He's not sure what he expects – joy, a glint in her eyes that tells him she's happy to see him, a little grin, _something_. His mind is still reeling with the fact that she's _alive_, and all he can think about is reaching out and touching this specter of a Spectre just to make sure she's _real. _If his mind's playing a dirty trick on him, he'll never forgive it.

"Garrus." There's surprise and interest for just a moment, but it's gone in the next blink. "Yeah, I was. Dead as I could possibly fucking be. Isn't that right, Miranda?" She doesn't wait for the other woman to answer, instead barreling on. "Doesn't matter now. You're the one on death's doorstep. Let's figure out a plan to get the hell out of here, and maybe then we can talk." Her tone leaves no room for arguments, and the other two converge at her sides, ready to strategize, it seems.

He's taken aback. If he expected anything at all, this was most certainly not it. She's got a look in her eyes, but it isn't something he's ever seen before – it's buried deep, like she's trying to hide it, but he caught a glimpse. Why is she trying to hide from him? Doesn't she remember that he's always seen past her masks? That he's been there when no one else has? If so, he can't see any proof of it now. He glances at the two beside her and calms himself with the thought of them being strangers. Shepard's a private person. She probably wants to keep the more personal greeting for a private setting.

He clears his throat, and grasps onto the steel that his spine is supposedly composed of, wanting to get out of this as soon as possible. "Let's check out the other side. I doubt we'll be getting out as easily as you all got yourselves in."

Shepard marches up beside him, and he's struck once more by the odd way she moves. It's more…predatory than he remembers. There's another detail that hits a strange note with him – were her eyes always _that _gray? He has always recalled them as blue-gray, softer. They're slate, now…steel. Shaking himself to keep focused on the mission at hand, he passes over his sniper rifle when she silently asks for it, mandibles flickering in a combination of nerves and anxiousness. She looks through the scope and checks out the enemy's defenses, shooting the head off a mech while she does so.

"They're sending out mechs. One less, though." She passes the rifle back over to him, which he immediately reloads, and gives a short nod as she turns back to her other two. "All right. Jacob, you and Garrus will take the defenses up front. Try not to let any slip through to Miranda and I – we'll cover back." She's got a fierce grin on her face, betraying her words – it's as if she _wants _them to slip up and let mercs through, just so she can have the delightful pleasure of killing them.

Garrus shakes his head again to rid himself of those thoughts and takes his place at the front, readying his sniper rifle as the mechs come down the bridge. _Keep funneling yourselves to me, _he thinks to himself, and tenses his body as he ducks behind the barrier before him. To his left, he hears the flare of a biotic warming up, and the heavy, familiar smell of ozone drifts over to him. Behind him, he can hear Miranda and Shepard shuffling before falling into place, guns, he assumes, trained on the floor below them.

He takes a deep breath and begins to shoot.

* * *

**And there's chapter one for you guys! Kinda short as well, though I'm breaking up what I've written where I best think it fits. I never know how long the chapter will be for sure, though you guys should expect steady updates. This is NaNo, after all! It also might be a little bit boring, but I'm going to try and fix that. Writing on absolutely no sleep might not be the best thing, hehehe.**


	3. Chapter 2

**MY FLESH WILL FEED THE DEMON / MEETING ANEW**

Her hands are trembling.

She feels hot, but when she raises fingers to her brow, there's no heat. She's not feverish in her body – she's feverish in her mind. A low groan rises in the back of her throat like bile, scorching the soft tissues, but she holds it back and clenches her jaw so hard it hurts. Her head falls down to rest between her knees, hands held awkwardly out in front of her in a stiff fashion as they continue to shake. A finger twitches, and she bites down hard on her bottom lip when clenching her jaw won't stop the heat.

She knows she should tell Miranda, but she can't make herself get up from her locked position on the floor. If she lifts her head, she could see the glaring orange light of the holographic alarm clock in front of her, but she can't do that much. She'd ordered EDI to dim her lights, and now she wishes she'd had asked to turn them off completely. The faint blue glow of the empty fish tank penetrates her eyelids, and she lets out a low warning growl to no one in particular.

What is this? What is this madness that's taken over her mind? She can't concentrate on any particular memory or emotion aside from occasional bouts of blinding rage. Something akin to a whimper manages to escape the confines of her tightened lips, and she huffs out before taking in a deep breath and tensing all over again. _Dead, back to life, dead, back to life, dead back to life, dead back to life deadbacktolife—_

_Am I still dead?_

Shepard curls further inwards on herself, as if attempting to fold up into a little square quite like one of her many guns. _Cerberus. _They've brought her back to life, and she has yet to come to terms with it. She isn't sure if she should be grateful to the bastards _(no, not the bastards, they gave me life)_, or be thankful that she has another chance. Still yet, this fire burning through her mind is difficult to think past, and she is once more overwhelmed when the notion is acknowledged.

It's too much – she's feeling _too much. _Her every sense _hurts_, and she doesn't know how to make it stop _make it stop make it stop please stop FUCK STOP WHY IS IT SO BLUE- _Her eyes open, and she glares in rage at the large, empty fish tank, the culprit of the blue light behind her eyelids. She wants to smash the thing to bits, an urge that is nearly indulged when someone knocks on her door.

The burning disappears. The trembling fades away. She's normal once more, and she straightens as if nothing has happened, moving over to key in the code that'll let whoever it is into her room.

"Shepard." _His _voice again, his face. She stares at him for a second too long – he fidgets uncomfortably under the gaze – and has to make herself nod and make a gesture as if to invite him inside. He nods back, still looking at her in a strange way, and she decides to ignore him for now.

Her steps take her to the bottle of warmed asari wine, which she drinks directly out of. It's not as good as it was when she'd first pulled it from the fridge, but she'll make do. "There something you need, Garrus?"

"Ah…nothing in particular. I came to, uh, see how you are."

She feels a flash of certain anger that he seems not to have grown up a goddamn bit. "Still awkward as ever," she mumbles to herself, and when she glances at him, she thinks she remembers enough of his facial expressions to see hurt flash across his face for a split second.

He schools it into something she can't quite place, and makes an obvious attempt at lightening the mood. "I can't seem to recall you complaining about it before."

"Your good looks weren't all fucked up back then. They made me look past the awkward."

The hurt doesn't show this time, though she knows it's there. She's purposefully making jabs, though she can't find a specific reason as to _why_ – and hell, there's a large part of her that simply cannot care. So, she sits down on the couch and motions for him to do the same, wondering what his ulterior motive is for coming up to the loft.

He sits gingerly, on the edge of his seat, and she's struck hard by the image that makes him look even more birdlike than normal, causing her to snort softly to herself. He gives her a curious look, but she shakes her head and he moves on. "So. How…are you, Mor?"

The old nickname causes warmth to stir in her chest, but she ignores it and answers. "Are you trying to get more information out of me concerning my death? If so, you shouldn't fucking bother. I know about as much as you do. Go talk to Miranda if you're that goddamn curious."

His mandibles are flicking again, and she narrows her eyes at them in suspicion and interest. For some reason, though she used to be as familiar with Garrus's body as she is her own, his mandibles are such an alien concept that she has to fight a sudden urge to rip them both off. They're _not right._ She crosses her legs and takes another swig from the bottle, watching him intensely as she waits for him to respond to her.

Finally, he says, "I'm less interested in the details and more invested in how you're feeling now." The words are flat – even his subvocals are silent, her translator not even giving the slightest bit of feedback.

She shrugs, and then looks down at the bottle. "I don't know. Alive?" Her gaze goes back to him, and she holds up the bottle. "I'd offer you some, but I broke my glasses." They'd been the first things to suffer under a random bout of rage.

He shakes his head – she notes somewhere in the back of her mind that it must be a habit he picked up from her – and suddenly leans forward, intense. "Morrigan. Something's wrong. _Tell me._" His tone is no-nonsense at this point, and she can feel his subvocals going into a range so low that the static from her translator completely disappears.

Her brows knot together and her hands clench into fists, and she's about to open her mouth and give him a good tongue-lashing when something within her splinters and breaks. She throws herself at him as that dam floods her with remorse and horror and joy. Her fingers find their places on him, clinging close as if they've never been gone. "G-Garrus," she chokes out, pressing her face into the side of his neck and taking in deep breaths in a wild, desperate attempt not to soak his leathery skin with salty tears. She's never cried before, not in front of anyone.

Never in front of the only man that's ever made her strong.

"Morrigan, it's okay," he says softly, and the humming of his subvocals surpasses the reach of her translators in sense of emotion – she _feels _rather than _hears _his concern and worry. "I'm here. I'm—I'm here."

They're useless words (words that are supposed to mean something but simply cannot), but those subvocals and the way his talons are scraping through her long blonde locks are more comfort than she can possibly describe. He murmurs more words in her ear, and she clings to the sound of his flanging voice. He's her rock, as he's always been, and she clings so she won't sink into the ocean that laps at her feet.

**Back agaaaain with chapter two! Thanks to the lone reviewer – YOU'RE AWESOME! 8D The prologue is actually a future sort of thing…which, when I bother to edit this, will be edited. xD There are so many things I try not to notice that's wrong with the story, but to get to the word count I just can't go and fix it all! So yiss, this chapter is more emotional than adventure-y fight-y but hopefully I can kick things into gear soon. Stretch out my fingers and whatnot. 8D Thanks for reading, lovelies! **


	4. Chapter 3

**ALL YOUR POWER CRUMBLES IN MY ARMS / PIECING BACK TOGETHER**

Garrus had no expectations when he made his way up to the captain's cabin. He didn't want to harbor false hopes for something that could go really, really wrong. However, whatever he might have prepared himself for did not encompass Shepard breaking down and throwing herself at him. Now he holds her close like he always has, desperately trying to comfort her even though he has no idea what he should be saying. He can't comprehend what she's gone through to push her to _this, _more close to completely falling apart than he ever thought possible. He's never seen her cry.

She's never been anything but strong and powerful, even when everything she's ever worked for seems meaningless and not worth the pain. He's seen those weak moments. He's seen her at her most vulnerable state, and those still don't come close to the episode she's having now.

"Mor, what can I do? Tell me what I should do," he says, and he's not able to hold back the full force of his subvocals, which are drenched in his worry and despair.

She doesn't answer him, instead attempting to curl even closer, and he obliges by tightening his arms about her middle. He waits, not wanting to push her before she's ready to speak, and continues the slow run of his talons through her hair. In the silence, he thinks through the last half hour. She'd been unnecessarily cruel; she'd _lied _to him about what had attracted them in the first place. He can't rightly say that she made her feelings come across as superficial, but something in the back of his mind says that he doesn't even know if she ever had actual feelings in the first place.

_No, there had to be something there. _He doesn't think that she'd have let him so close if she hadn't. Shepard has always been about getting close to her team, but never letting them get close to _her. _He's seen how she can keep a conversation about the other person going, how she can delicately weave around questions about herself with half-answers and questions of her own. It's done so subtly that the person might not even notice it, unless they know her well enough.

He didn't know her well enough, not for quite some time.

It's not long before he's pulled out of those mulling thoughts when the gasping noises finally slow down. He loosens his arms by a minuscule amount, peering down at her, but she mumbles something at him and hugs him harder. Another minute or so passes before she finally speaks, and he swears that he's going to break apart with her if something isn't done to make her pain stop. There's a flash of guilt as he realizes that he's not enough to _do _that.

"Sorry." The word is short, mumbled in a voice that's wracked with pain and shame, and he tilts his head to the side as he looks down at her.

"You don't need to apologize."

"I do, though," she says, louder and with more strength. "I was a bitch. I…I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Shepard," he says quietly, and she finally looks up at him. He strokes the back of his talon over her cheek, and watches as little bumps rise along the skin. "Nothing's wrong with you. You said it yourself – you're _alive. _I can't have asked for much more than that."

Her bottom lip trembles, and he can see the slow transformation take over her features; the tightening around her eyes and mouth lets him know she's determined. "Alive. Yes. Alive when I should be long dead."

"Do you know how often I imagined this?" He speaks from somewhere deep within that he's kept locked up for the past two years – only dreams have seen how very fervently he wished for her to return to him. "How often-" He stops, trying to find the words to properly _express_ what he knows she can't hear.

She shakes her head, and her fingers brush gently against his left mandible, causing it to quiver. "I'm sorry," she repeats, and he almost makes a soft noise of amusement at the fact that neither one of them seem to be able to speak.

"Granted, I never really had Cerberus in mind when I did. Or a brand-new Normandy." He's trying to lighten the mood again. Neither of them are good with emotions, and he's hoping that if they can just move on, things will get easier. Morrigan has to face reality at some point: it's a suicide mission they're on, so it's said, and if she's not right, everything will fall apart. Garrus has always known that she can do anything she puts her mind to if she's got the right gumption, but he wonders how anyone could overcome this. Hell, if he had died and come back to life…he doesn't know _what _kind of person he'd be.

Aside from that, there's always his internal worry that Cerberus has done something to her that everyone's unaware of. Even worse, what if she's not really Morrigan? But her smell is mostly right – she has some upgrades, cybernetics – and she _feels _right in his arms. No one can be brought back to life…no one but Shepard. He can't imagine the amount of resources it took to piece her back together, but there will always be a part of him that's infinitely grateful to Cerberus for doing so.

Finally, she gives a quiet laugh, shaking her head and pulling away from him to look over his face. "Okay, I get it, moment over." She reaches up and runs a hand through her hair, glancing away from him and at the fish tank.

He catches sight of a strange look come over her face, but he can't place what it is and doesn't question her about it. "I mean…if you wanted to keep clinging to me, I don't think I'd mind that," he says dryly, and in return, gets a light(ish) punch in the arm. He winces just as he knows she expects him to do, and then gives her a _look_. "Was that really necessary?"

"It's never _not_ been necessary with you." She gets off of him, snatching up the bottle from where she set it on the table, and takes a large swig of it.

Garrus is suddenly reminded of Shepard's notorious ability to drink practically anyone under the table, and he gives his turian approximation of a grin. "We've got another mission tomorrow. Don't you think you should lay off that?"

"Probably. I think I'll be just fine." She looks to him, and gives him a tired grin. "Thanks for coming up here."

"I'm glad I did. I've missed you, Mor."

"Prove it, space dinosaur."

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**YAY ANOTHER REVIEWER. You're awesome! The Illusive Man will be coming along shortly – I have some chapters pre-written, but unfortunately, I had to drop from NaNo. I injured myself so badly that I can't sit up for long periods of time, so typing is hard. Thanks so much for reading. I'd love more reviews. 8D**


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